Operation Stop Arm Saves Our Children

Local parents Sheri Lewis and her neighbor Mandi Call had watched motorists pass their children’s bus on Post Oak Tritt for years. In 2009 a kindergartner at their children’s school was killed at a bus stop.

“We vowed on that day that we would no longer sit by and watch motorists illegally pass school buses without trying to stop it. We would no longer take the “there is nothing we can do” answer from the police department, transportation department, and school district,” said Lewis.

Operation Stop Arm (OSA) was born “to bring together the people and departments that have the power to change this behavior and help reduce the number of stop arm violations in our state,” according to Lewis.

OSA wants to reduce the incidents and save children’s lives by educating motorists on the law, educating the children and parents on how to be safe at the bus stop, getting stop arm cameras on buses to deter or catch violators, and providing law enforcement with data that will help them to enforce the law.  

OSA wants to get the Georgia School Bus Stop law out in front of as many motorists as possible, so they will not question whether they should stop for the school bus. They have provided information that shows diagrams of different road types and when and where to stop for the bus. 

There are currently stop arm cameras being tested on Cobb County School District (CCSD) buses with the transportation department working with Cobb County Police Department (CCPD) traffic unit to work out how this video in addition to the violation reports can be used to ticket stop arm violators.

Bus driver Connie Cross said that she had to grab a student back onto her bus to protect him from being hit. Her comment to drivers is, “What if it was your child?” She also mentions how often cars drive around the bus while it is stopped at a Rail Road track. When a bus driver reports lots of people passing, they are switched to a bus with the video camera to catch the violators, Cross said.

The OSA website features a video of drivers passing buses. OSA with the help of CCSD transportation has provided some problematic bus routes to Cobb County Sheriff’s Department.  This has resulted in patrols by Sheriffs which resulted in tickets issued for stop arm violations.

“Commuter Dude from 11 Alive was at our bus stop and actually witnessed first- hand a car illegally pass our school bus as the children were loading. OSA has been in touch with the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety in hopes of getting the diagrams of when to stop for the bus posted on their website. Recently, we heard that a stop arm camera vendor is interested in coming to Georgia and will be pushing for legislation that would allow ticketing from stop arm cameras,” Lewis told Northeast Cobb Patch.  

Operation Stop Arm needs you. “We are just a small group of parents trying to make a difference.  It would help to have more people out there spreading the word.

Know the law, obey the law, and share the law with others for the sake of the children. The school bus is not there to inconvenience you.  It is transporting our most precious citizens, our future!”  said Lewis.